An impressively synoptic treatment of a complex and important subject.
Sullivan provides a comprehensive overview and sharp critique of the ways in which innocent children are harmed by the criminal justice system.
The author, an associate professor of international studies and global affairs at St. Mary’s University, begins his remarkably thorough study by observing that the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world; while this is pointed out often enough, the consequences of this fact for the children of those imprisoned and detained is a strangely neglected subject. Sullivan focuses on these “collateral consequences,” the many ways in which the blameless children of those arrested, detained, or deported suffer from a “vicarious punishment.” Several categories of these sanctions are explored, including the denial of citizenship to the children of non-citizens deported or detained, family separations imposed at the border that leave children without their parents, the “denationalization” of children of those accused of terrorist activity, and the separation of Indigenous children from families that were seen as resistant to full assimilation. The author prosecutes a persuasive case detailing the unacceptable imbalance between the needs of preventive justice and deterrence on the one hand and the rights of children on the other: “Preventive justice approaches prioritize risk management over individual civil liberties and the presumption of innocence.” He discusses the practice of meting out “stealth punishments disguised as administrative sanctions,” disingenuously strategic ways to legally impose harsh penalties upon those who have committed no crime. Sullivan also lucidly discusses technically prohibitive subjects such as competing theories of punishment, rendered in admirably accessible language. The author can advocate too unreservedly for rehabilitation, especially given its spotty empirical track record. And some may object to the idea that, in the case of detention for an immigration violation, job training and education should be provided to “help the detainee to grow as a human being,” as this assertion goes far beyond the respect of individual liberties. Still, this is a rigorously researched and argued assessment of the ways in which the criminal justice system unduly disadvantages children who have committed no offense.
An impressively synoptic treatment of a complex and important subject.Pub Date: May 19, 2023
ISBN: 9780197671238
Page Count: 264
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 5, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.
An Egyptian Canadian journalist writes searchingly of this time of war.
“Rules, conventions, morals, reality itself: all exist so long as their existence is convenient to the preservation of power.” So writes El Akkad, who goes on to state that one of the demands of modern power is that those subject to it must imagine that some group of people somewhere are not fully human. El Akkad’s pointed example is Gaza, the current destruction of which, he writes, is causing millions of people around the world to examine the supposedly rules-governed, democratic West and declare, “I want nothing to do with this.” El Akkad, author of the novel American War (2017), discerns hypocrisy and racism in the West’s defense of Ukraine and what he views as indifference toward the Palestinian people. No stranger to war zones himself—El Akkad was a correspondent in Afghanistan and Iraq—he writes with grim matter-of-factness about murdered children, famine, and the deliberate targeting of civilians. With no love for Zionism lost, he offers an equally harsh critique of Hamas, yet another one of the “entities obsessed with violence as an ethos, brutal in their treatment of minority groups who in their view should not exist, and self-decreed to be the true protectors of an entire religion.” Taking a global view, El Akkad, who lives in the U.S., finds almost every government and society wanting, and not least those, he says, that turn away and pretend not to know, behavior that we’ve seen before and that, in the spirit of his title, will one day be explained away until, in the end, it comes down to “a quiet unheard reckoning in the winter of life between the one who said nothing, did nothing, and their own soul.”
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593804148
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
